Comment 97340

By Keith (anonymous) | Posted February 01, 2014 at 00:19:30 in reply to Comment 97313

That's called a timed-transfer system- it's a normal design feature in transit systems. The 10/15 minute period you're referring is called the "pulse". The idea is to have buses all arrive at a major node at the same time to allow passengers to make connections. In Hamilton, the major node is King/James and MacNab terminal. If you watch during rush hour, all the mountain routes arrive to MacNab within a 5/10 minute window with most of the mainline and crosstown routes doing the same.

The tradeoff of not doing this is that people coming from another bus route end up having longer transfer times. You can see it at the MacNab terminal in the off-peak where mountain routes arrive on alternating pulses. If one bus arrive late it screws things up for those riders, but it's better for the greater good than the individual.

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